Why are evolutions free?
thefonz
Join Date: 2011-06-22 Member: 105847Members
Join Date: 2011-06-22 Member: 105847Members
To be clear, I'm talking about celerity, etc. Not leap, etc. I suppose asymmetry is the answer. Life form explosions aren't best as bad as they once were. But to some degree they still occur. Giving evolutions a small charge, say 1-2 pres could further spread life forms out. It would encourage players to think more. Hopefully less throwing away skulks because they want to keep from rebuying evolutions so they can evolve sooner. Skulks are fodder, yes, so the cost cannot be too great. Some player will forgo evolutions in favor of reaching a higher life form sooner.
Thought? Opinions? Reasons I am an idiot who should be banned from existing?
Thought? Opinions? Reasons I am an idiot who should be banned from existing?
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Result: nobody used upgrades on skulks.
Also it was tried and was a terrible failure during the beta, simply punished aliens when marines got everything for free (and could recycle most p-res purchases).
Do you know if that setup was ever tested with pres for kills?
I'm sure if you were confident enough to break even on the deal that plenty would of still evolved as skulks with that setup
It only made sense to spend PRes on lifeforms expected to live longer than a minute or two.
RFK was removed in B194 (Gorilla) and upgrades became free in B205 so (I believe) there was some overlap between RFK and non-free upgrades (though I can't find which build upgrades were introduced and whether they started out as free or not). However, it still made more sense to put your RFK PRes towards a lerk or fade than throwing it away on skulks.
So, if all life forms other than the skulk were made significantly weaker, but upgrades were made significantly more powerful, how this would affect the opinion of the skulk as an end game lifeform.
At the moment, the skulk is essentially a stepping stone to bigger and better things. The intention was of course to ensure that no life form was ever made obsolete, and to a certain extent this has been accomplished, but lets be honest; a fade is better than a skulk, every time.
If life forms like lerks, fades and onos were made weaker, but had their upgrades buffed in turn, they could be kept roughly where they currently are in terms of power. However, this system would then allow skulks to, for example, get carapace that provided twice the amount of armour, or celerity that increased speed by 50% more than it currently does. For a price, of course.
In such a system, the skulk would definitely still die more often than a fade or lerk, but it would obviously be more reliable to keep alive, and be more effective in combat. If a lerk would need to spend 30 resources to evolve, and 4 resources for two upgrades, then a skulk would be able to die 8 times, getting two upgrades each life, during the lerks life time in order to break even.
You could essentially get "career skulks".
This was also tried in NS1 - did they forget why they removed it?
They remembered why they wanted it in.